Lament of the Dead
by Silent Bob4
Summary: The first in a long line of chapters involving the adventures of several strange and very different people, forced to join together in the oddest posse in the Weird Wild West...


I don't own this....or actually know much about it. I've never even player the game, so give me a break here, OK? Please R&R with comments *grin*  
  
Prologue: Death Is Not The End  
  
The sun beat down relentlessly upon the small town. It was dead, long since abandoned, and the paint had peeled off to reveal sun-bleached wood. Glassless windows looked out of empty buildings upon the dusty road, and the name of the town had long since faded into nothing on its post.  
And yet to Zeke "Lazy Eye" Johnson, it looked like paradise. He limped as fast as he could towards it, grimacing as his bloodied leg dragged and jarred behind him. His pistol held loosely before him, he cautiously glanced around the deserted town, peering inside of the empty windows as though expecting some phantom to be gazing out at him. He stopped when he realised what he was doing, and cursed graphically to himself, blinking sweat out of his eyes.  
'Damn it Zeke, that Limey son of a bitch has got you jumping at shadows,' he muttered to himself, wiping a dirty sleeve across his brow, leaving a dusty trail across it, 'gotta keep calm, lay low for a little while.'  
He froze suddenly. Had he just heard the creak of a floorboard? No, it couldn't be; the guy was on foot, and even with his bad leg he'd had a good few hours head start at least. Damn it, if only the horse hadn't given up under him so soon!   
Creak.  
BANG!  
'I'll get you, you son of a bitch you!' yelled to the empty village, his pistol held shakily before him, 'I'll kill you and scalp you, make it look like Indians got you!'  
'I rather think not,' came a polite, English accent, seemingly from thin air. Zeke gave a terrified scream, and dived towards the busted door of the nearest building, rolling through the empty doorframe and crawling on his hands and knees underneath the nearest cover he could find, and old dusty table. Sobbing like a little boy with a skinned knee, he opened his gun's chamber and checked his bullets.  
One left.  
'Oh sweet merciful God save me,' he wept.  
'You know, I don't think he's listening.'  
Zeke stopped breathing, his blood-shot eyes wide open.  
'Do get up off the floor Zeke; it's hardly very dignified snivelling to yourself under a table. That's no way for a man to behave, not even a murderer like you.'  
Slowly, Zeke obeyed the voice, and turned around, dropping the gun to the floor and putting his hands into the air slowly.  
There was a figure before him, seated in a fine high backed chair that looked very much out of place in the surroundings. His legs were crossed in a nonchalant manner, his arms folded across his chest, and his head was bowed slightly as he rocked back and forth in an absent minded way. Zeke couldn't make out the figures face, as his broad rimmed black hat was pulled down so it obscured his face in shadow, and black seemed to be a running theme, from his long tailed coat to his shiny boots. The only decoration was the rows of silver bullets mounted along his hat, and the silver buckles and buttons on his coat.  
'Now Zeke, you know who I am, don't you?' the figure said in a hoarse, whispered voice, undeniably British. Zeke's mouth flapped open and shut like a fish gasping for air.  
'No sir, I dunt know you at all,' he mumbled, taking his hat off and fidgeting with it nervously. The seated figure laughed.  
'Oh stop it Zeke, it's getting old. You know who I am.'  
'No sir,' Zeke said, his voice shaking as tears started to well in his mad eyes, 'me an' my posse may have shot a Limey man like you a few days ago, but we got him good, left him looking like a rag doll when we tossed him off that cliff, but you couldn't be him sir, begging your pardon, 'cause he's dead an' you're…an' you're…'  
Zeke's voice trailed off slowly. There was a long, dangerous silence.  
'The man who hired you, what was his name?' the figure asked. Zeke's brow furrowed for a second.  
'I believe he was a Texan man, had a fine suit on an' all the trimmings like. Me an' the boys just thought he wanted us to deal with some guy he owed money to was all. He paid us handsome like, told us to make sure that gentleman never got to Dunn Hill he said.'  
Zeke's voice was stammering now, as his body was wracked with barely contained sobs. The shadows beneath the figure's hat seemed to shift slightly, as if directing his unseen gaze fully upon the weeping man.  
'I asked for a name,' he prompted.  
'I think… I think his name was Seymour,' Zeke babbled, 'Seymour Lynch, right enough. He gave me his card an' all.'  
'Show me.'  
Zeke scrabbled in his pocket, and quickly handed the grubby rectangle of card to the figure. The seated man took it in a black-gloved hand, and turned it over in his fingers.  
'I see. So Lynch knows now does he?' the figure mused to himself.  
'Sir?' Zeke asked. The figure's attention returned to the man.  
'Yes?'  
'Was you that gentleman me and my posse killed that day?' Zeke asked, his voice seemingly calmer now. The hat bobbed.  
'Yes Zeke, I'm the man you killed.'  
'An'' are you Lucifer sent to torment me for my sins?'  
'What do you think Zeke?'  
Zeke blinked, the last few tears rolling down his reddened cheeks, and gaped. The shadowy man stood up, the shadows still clinging to him, and patted him on the shoulder.  
'Thank you for your assistance Zeke. Good day to you.'  
'Sir!' Zeke said suddenly, 'am I gonna go to Hell?'  
The figure stopped at the doorway, and seemed to tilt his head as he considered the question posed. Then he turned, and for a quick second Zeke thought he caught a glimpse of dead, clouded eyes before the shadows fell back into place.  
'That's for God to decide, not me. You have a bullet left in that gun of yours, right?'  
'Yes sir, that I do.'  
'Well, I think that's a sign, don't you?'  
Zeke watched the dark man walk out of the building, and head towards the desert, the wind whipping his coat tail behind him lazily. He took a deep breath, and stooped down to fetch his gun.  
There was a black horse, tethered to an old baulk of timber that slanted out of the ruins of an ancient store. The dark figure untied it, and gently led the horse to the road before mounting it in one swift movement.  
He heard the shot ring out in the silent air, and the almost inaudible thud that followed it. The dark figure paused for a moment in respectful silence, and then urged his horse on.  
'May God have mercy upon his soul,' he muttered, as he steered his horse west…. 


End file.
